8 = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
NEWS
WEDNESDAY, JULY 2, 2003
NATION
Judge authorizes evidence linking Nichols to bombing
OKLAHOMA CITY — Impressions left by a drill bit that allegedly links Terry Nichols to the theft of explosives used in the Oklahoma City bombing can be used at his trial, a state judge ruled Monday.
District Judge Steven Taylor denied a defense motion to exclude the evidence at Nichols' trial, set for March 1. Nichols, already convicted on federal bombing charges and sentenced to life in prison, faces the death penalty if convicted on state murder charges.
Investigators discovered a drill and drill bits while searching Nichols' home in Herrington after he surrendered two days after a 4,000-pound ammonium nitrate and fuel oil bomb ripped through the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995.
Former FBI toolmark expert James Cadigan testified a bit found in Nichols' home matched marks made on a drilled-out padlock from a quarry break-in six months before the bombing.
The Associated Press
GAY RIGHTS
Court overturns Texas anti-sodomy law
Kansas law voided; ruling evokes feelings of joy and concern
By Annie Bernethy
aberneth@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
A Supreme Court ruling Thursday struck down Texas' anti-sodomy law, rendering other state anti-sodomy laws unenforceable. Kansas is one of 13 other states that had anti-sodomy laws.
Kansas and three other states — Oklahoma, Texas and Missouri — had antisodomy laws targeting same-sex couples.
These laws only addressed gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people, or GLBTG. The 10 other states prohibited sodomy in general, not just same-sex couples.
Attorney General Phill Kline said the Supreme Court decision made Kansas adult sodomy laws unenforceable and unconstitutional.
"We are providing notice to county and
district attorneys and other law enforcement officials of the nature of the Supreme Court decision and its effect on this little used Kansas law," Kline said in the statement.
Sarah Burris, Lawrence Junior and outreach chair for Queers and Allies, said she thought the ruling was a good thing.
"It's a big step in human rights," she said. "I'm optimistic it will help with marriage laws and any other discrimination laws."
Although some look at this as a landmark decision, others find it disheartening. Focus on the Family, a conservative pro-family organization, deemed the decision immoral.
"While it may feel good to some that a stigma is lifted from a particular group, something else has been lifted — the boundaries that prevent sexual chaos in our culture," said Tom Minnery, vice president of public policy for Focus on the Family.
Chris Robinson, graduate from the University of Kansas, has actively researched GLBTG discrimination in Kansas for a year. She said the ruling was
"It's a big step in human rights." Sarah Burris Outreach chair for Queens and Allies
huge for Kansas.
"This has implications beyond the general criminal sodomy statute," she said. "It gives strong grounding to challenge the Romeo and Juliet law."
Kansas' "Romeo and Juliet Law" gives lesbian and gay youths longer prison sentences than heterosexual youths who engage in the same behavior.
Robinson said she thought the sodomy laws had been used to discriminate on a number of bases and were often used as a tool of fear. She wants to publish her research, which looks at how sodomy laws discriminate against Kansans, in a journal.
The Supreme Court decision also brings up other same-sex issues such marriages, parenting and adoption and the basic civil rights for GLBTG's.
—Edited by Brandon Baker